Despite President Obama cautioning against intervention in Syria, the Pentagon is making “initial preparations” for a cruise missile attack on Syrian government forces, according to a new report.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey is expected to present
options for such a strike at a White House meeting on Saturday,
CBS News reported on Friday.

US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel suggested Friday naval forces
are moving in position closer to Syria in case Obama chooses
action.

"The Defense Department has a responsibility to provide the
president with options for contingencies, and that requires
positioning our forces, positioning our assets, to be able to
carry out different options — whatever options the president
might choose," Hagel said, adding a decision must be made
quickly given “there may be another (chemical) attack.”

Meanwhile, a defense official, cited by Reuters, said on Friday
the US Navy was expanding its Mediterranean presence with a
fourth cruise-missile ship, the USS Mahan. Though the source
stressed to Reuters the Navy did not have orders to prepare for
military operations against Syria.

The ship was due to head back to the United States, but the
commander of the US Sixth Fleet decided to maintain the ship in
the region.

All four ships are capable of launching long-range, subsonic
cruise missiles to reach land targets.

President Barack Obama is under renewed pressure to take action
following the emergence of footage of what appears to be the
aftermath of a toxic agent attack in a Damascus suburb on
Wednesday. The forces of President Bashar Assad were assaulting a
rebel stronghold in the district at the time, but deny
responsibility. Moscow, which has maintained close ties with the
regime, called the incident a rebel “provocation” possibly
designed to derail upcoming Geneva peace talks.

Though the Pentagon will present plans for potential action on
Saturday, as CBS reported, President Obama has final say on any
further developments.

Questioned on the continuing upheaval in Syria and Egypt during a
CNN interview Friday, Obama said the United States should be wary of “being
drawn into very expensive, difficult, costly interventions that
actually breed more resentment in the region.”

Obama went on to express reservations for becoming involved in
the 30-month Syrian conflict due to a lack of international
consensus.

"If the US goes in and attacks another country without a UN
mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then
there are questions in terms of whether international law
supports it, [and] do we have the coalition to make it work?”
said Obama.

Adding to the rhetoric in Washington, Sen. John McCain said that
if the administration was to “let this go on,” it was
“writing a blank check to other brutal dictators around the
world if they want to use chemical weapons."

The top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee also
spoke out in support of a strike in Syria, writing to Obama of
the need to respond to the latest alleged outrage.

"If we, in concert with our allies, do not respond to Assad's
murderous uses of weapons of mass destruction, malevolent
countries and bad actors around the world will see a green light
where one was never intended," Rep. Eliot Engel wrote on
Friday.

Engel has been a proponent of a more aggressive approach to
Assad’s government.

"And, we can do this with no boots on the ground, from
stand-off distances," he added in the letter. "I know that
your Administration is wrestling with these very complex issues,
but I believe that we, as Americans, have a moral obligation to
step in without delay and stop the slaughter."

Obama insisted to CNN that while the United States remains
“the one indispensable nation” in international diplomacy,
he suggested that perhaps this was one conflict where the world
should not look to Washington for a definitive answer.

"The notion that the US can somehow solve what is a sectarian
complex problem inside of Syria sometimes is overstated,"
said the president.

The White House later released a statement confirming Obama’s
words, and emphasizing that the US has no plans to put “boots
on the ground.”